How valuable has it been for you as you've interviewed so many people, the connections you make with those people? Has there been value in that for you beyond just the interview?

Yeah, for sure.

And I think that's the secret solution that people don't talk about, right? Because to use it, that always feels like an AI cliche, right? Here's the secret no one will tell you.

But it's true because...

I'm going to be honest with you because you deserve that.

Yeah, you have a seat at the table.

So the secret that no one will tell you to kind of fit the AI algorithm at ease is that it's tempting to chase the vanity metrics, right? And say, well, I have this podcast, have this social following, and I put this out and I got 100,000 downloads.

What would you suggest to those people?

But at the same time, it might be good to collaborate with other people that are also building communities and interested in telling their personal story.

A hundred percent.

Because as you say, people are, they have an audience, so they might post it and other people are searching them.

And I even found that personally, I like that.

If there's someone that I follow, like a YouTuber or like a thought leader or something, sometimes I'm like, man, how did they get started? And I find that a lot more useful, right? Where did they struggle early on in their twenties or thirties? And like, sure, they have whatever their current bread and butter is their project right now, but the the origin story or the, just the more relatable stuff.

Like it's, it's way more entertaining.

And it seems like you were able to apply these transferable skills you picked up from Jerry Springer of like finding out what seems good and filtering out the potentially theoretically 4,000 calls.

But as far as who you're interviewing, oh man, it's so great to interview people that you're not over researching.

Yeah

...

I could've s- answered that question so much better at eight minutes and 22 seconds." And you'll be in search of the perfect conversation which doesn't exist, and you end up second-guessing yourself.

And it's, it's like so much of life is just showing up and doing your best and being present and being focused, and then if you really want to improve, that's a thing that will happen over time.

But don't beat yourself up.

Be kind to yourself, and it took me, like, hundreds of episodes just to learn that lesson, that-

How does a podcast fit into someone's brand?

Well, I think that you need to keep your podcast going because there's so many podcasts out there, but there's also a lot of podcasts that are failing, that are on the bubble, that aren't consistent.

You're right.

There's still more to find.

Yes.

And imagine someone who's only the average Nicolas Cage fan, right? Maybe they've seen Lord of War, they've seen Next, but they haven't seen even Las Vegas.

Yes.

There's always more to discover, more to find.

And there's this thing called the algorithm, right? Where when the internet began, you put up a webpage, people would see it just because there were so few webpages.

What are the exact steps from recording an episode to having a content calendar filled?